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“No one asked." How to Stop Giving Unsolicited Advice
By Alyssa Stephens
One thing I can’t stand is people speaking about my life, my choices, how I spend my time, and what I do without having full context or without having full context about how certain things work. I’m not shaming anyone for what they don’t know, but I will shame someone for speaking about what they don’t know. Then comes the labeling of being a procrastinator, lazy, naive, or whatever labels you’ve received. It’s the fact that unsolicited advice has always come from people I’ve never asked advice from or from people whose lives and relationships are on fire. What gives them the right? Where does the impulse to give unsolicited advice come from?
The problem with unsolicited advice is that it can imply that you don’t have the skills or understanding to handle a situation on your own or with confidence. Believe it or not, unsolicited advice is sometimes classified as a form of controlling behavior. It’s projection, in my opinion.
Maybe they don’t have anything going on, so it makes them feel better to think they have a say in my decisions, or maybe they are someone who may have been bombarded with criticism and words like ‘lazy’ and 'unfocused', and in turn, they’re attempts to motivate a friend manifests as unsolicited advice. They don’t…
